Ben Burtt on StarWars,ForbiddenPlanet and the Sound of Sci-Fi

Ben Burtt at the 30th anniversary screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark last year in Beverly Hills, California. Photo: Toby Canham/Getty Images

MARIN COUNTY, California — The cosmic hum of the lightsaber, the ominous deep breathing of Darth Vader, and the electronic voice of R2-D2 are but a few of Ben Burtt’s iconic contributions to Star Wars.

Shunning the slick sounds typically associated with science fiction movies, George Lucas tasked Burtt with creating audio that would lend realism to his epic space opera.

“You had this fantasy world, but the sounds give the illusion that it was all real,” Burtt told Wired in an interview at Skywalker Sound. “That it really existed. That spaceships really sounded like that.”

The resulting audio palette imbued Star Wars, released 35 years ago today, with an air of authenticity that helped transport moviegoers into the enduring universe crafted by Lucas and his associates. The work also cemented Burtt’s reputation as one of the world’s most important sound designers. Burtt played a key role in many major movies, putting his distinctive sonic stamp on the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Wall-E, and many more.

The 63-year-old Burtt, who still works at Skywalker Sound, began experimenting with tape machines as a child growing up in the 1950s. He saw the science fiction movie Forbidden Planet when it came out in 1956, and the film’s prescient electronic music soundtrack, by the pioneering composers Louis and Bebe Barron, still inspires him to this day. In this interview, conducted in December at Skywalker Sound and edited for length, Burtt discusses the impact of Forbidden Planet and how it inspired the sound design of Star Wars.

Wired: Why was George Lucas so adamant that Star Wars not have the usual electronic sounds associated with sci-fi movies?

Ben Burtt: His idea for Star Wars, which would distinguish it in many ways from other science fiction movies, would be that it would seem like a real world. In other words, he wanted it to sound like everything truly functioned — it wasn’t some magic behind it.

If a spaceship had a rusty door on it and you closed the door, that would be OK. Whereas much of science fiction movies prior to Star Wars tended to make it a pure electronic world where everything was either silent or a little wisp of air or a tiny feedback of some kind, electronic feedback. He didn’t want that — he wanted it to sound like it was natural. And he was right.

Wired: What drew you to the field of sound design?

Burtt: I was always interested in creating science fiction sound effects. But obviously, my approach has always been to do some research and find out what went before me. If I’m going to do a Western, I’ll try to figure out what are all the Westerns I like; I’ll listen to the sound and figure out where I can build onto that.

When I had the opportunity to do the first Star Wars movie, I realized, here’s a film I’ve sort of wanted to do all my life — it’s the kind of movie I enjoyed as a kid. So I drew upon the films that influenced me a lot, and Forbidden Planet was one of them.

Wired: How did you first become acquainted with Forbidden Planet and the music of Louis and Bebe Barron?

“I really felt like I was off the Earth, in another place that was very frightening.”

I saw that on its original release when I was a kid. My father took my sister and I to see it. I was at the same time terrified, as well as amazed, because the film created this really eerie, complete world — another world. I really felt like I was off the Earth, in another place that was very frightening. In fact, I can remember being in the theater, wishing that it would be over so I could get back to Earth. At the end of the movie, when they finally do start the voyage home, I was greatly relieved, because I was kind of terrified to be on this planet the whole time.

I realized a lot of the effect of that on me was the sound of the movie. The electronic tonalities that were … both music and sound effects at the same time, which is a wonderful way to do the track of any movie. Especially one that’s a fantasy, where you have the liberty of blurring that line.

Wired: Did you ever try to get in touch with Louis and Bebe Barron?

Burtt: When I was doing the first Star Wars movie, actually, I thought of Louis and Bebe Barron and I tried to get in touch with them. I was in Los Angeles at that time, and I was fresh out of film school. I did find [Louis] in the phone book; I called up Louis Barron and talked to him. I told him that I was hired to do this science fiction movie and I was trying to learn about how electronic sounds could be made, and would he offer me any suggestions or help.

I was looking for a little bit of education. He actually turned me down because, I understand in retrospect, it wasn’t a commercial project for him, I wasn’t going to be able to pay him and that sort of stuff…. So he basically said no. (laughs) I was a little bit disappointed by that, but nonetheless I kept up.

The original album cover for Forbidden Planet advertised "electronic tonalities" by Louis and Bebe Barron.Wired:How did Forbidden Planet‘s soundtrack impact your work on Star Wars?

I was curious as to how they created those sounds. I wasn’t into electronic music, per se. My instructions on the first Star Wars movie from George Lucas was that he didn’t want any electronic sounds in the science fiction sense — that it had become a cliché. Which it had been. But nonetheless, the tracks, the things I created, were mainly organic types of sounds. There was always an aspect of electronic music there, because one, it was part of the science fiction language, and two, there was … a need for so many fantasy sounds — the lightsabers, the force fields. You fall back on electronic sound because it’s a great source of emotion, in making the sounds of all these devices, the vehicles and stuff. So I always blended the two — I had some electronic sound mixed in with organic sounds, regular things we would gather, record in the real world and record animals and vehicles.

At that time, some of the electronic tools were on the market…. They were not the things [Louis Barron] used, but there was the Moog and the ARP and various things that existed — synthesizers.

Wired: The ARP 2600 was used for R2-D2.

Burtt: Yeah…. It’s right there! [Burtt points to the ARP 2600 synthesizer he used for R2-D2, next to his desk.]

In my own rudimentary way I learned something about generating electronic sounds. I always had that, and have a virtual synth in my equipment today, which I use sparingly, but it’s always involved somewhere in my process — especially for science fiction.

Wired: How would you describe Forbidden Planet‘s impact on sci-fi movie sound?

Burtt: After Forbidden Planet, lots of people tried to do this sort of thing in sci-fi movies and no one came close to what [Louis and Bebe Barron] did. I think one of the reasons is that they were musicians. They had a sense of harmony; they had a sense of chord progression. They had a sense of major versus minor, all the elements of Western music…. A composer has an understanding of that.

If you’re trying to create a certain musical statement, you’re able to do it, and things harmonize with each other. Whereas if you listen to the electronic sounds that other people did, often it’s annoying — it’s atonal and discordant, it’s all minor and it’s a buzz when it should be a pure tone. The Barrons had a real sense that what appealed to them worked for audiences. It still had all this musical value to it; it generated feelings. The film has moments that are tranquil…. It had moments where it seemed very threatening. They had that sensitivity to it. I don’t think that too many people, imitating them in later films, had that same sensitivity.

Wired: What specific points in Star Wars are in homage to Forbidden Planet?

“In some way that idea probably came from Forbidden Planet, the idea of this abyss full of energy that goes on forever…”

Burtt: The sounds inside the Death Star, all the different rumblings, the tonal things when Ben Kenobi goes in to turn off the tractor beam. That’s the Krell power shaft. I didn’t try to imitate it directly, but visually it looks like it, and in some way that idea probably came from Forbidden Planet, the idea of this abyss full of energy that goes on forever…. I used electronic sounds to support a lot of that. Or I put rhythms of sound together, slowed-down metallic bumping like a heartbeat, inside the Death Star. Which is probably in many ways because I was keying off Forbidden Planet. You couldn’t escape that element to it.

There’s a language of film sound that’s been built up for 80 years, because a lot of peoples’ experiences is something they hear in the movies rather than they hear in real life. What they think a face punch is, is how you hear it in a movie, whereas a real one is not anything like that. They think that if you jump on a horse, it whinnies as you ride away. That’s a movie convention. Those are clichés. But the fact is, when you make a new film, when you want to cover new ground … it’s wise to look back at where it’s come from. What can I learn from all of these sounds, in this genre of film, how can I take it to a new area? I want a foundation that exploits what’s been built up.

Wired: What other movies besides Forbidden Planet inspired you?

Burtt: Over my career? It wasn’t just science fiction movies. I loved Westerns. Movies that had a big influence in sound for me, of course, there was Forbidden Planet, The Adventures of Robin Hood. 2001: A Space Odyssey — the fact that it was a minimalist soundtrack was so powerful. It showed you the power of silence, the power of one little thing at a time, and how effective it could be. It wasn’t overloading you with layer upon layer of loud sound, like the movies of today; it was subtle. There were war movies that I loved. Goldfinger, Guns of Navarone…. I mean, I was a kid growing up. I loved action and adventure movies … then I ended up doing that for the rest of my life.

Wired: When you were a kid, you had a tape machine, and you did your early work with tape.

Burtt: I think in retrospect a lot of the things I discovered because I was working with tape when I started doing sound design, and there weren’t all the plugins and fancy digital things you can buy today and fill your laptop with them. You had to invent things as you went.

On Star Wars, if I needed some kind of flanging or phasing effect, I’d make two copies of the sound that were identical on two pieces of magnetic film. I’d play them back on two machines locked together and then I’d put a thumb on one or the other, combine the output and you could get phasing effects of the sound that way. It’s probably not so far off from what [Louis and Bebe Barron] were doing. Sometimes you need some kind of echo on something, I would take the sound and play it over a speaker in another place, and record it again, and bring that back and sync it up with the original so you’d get some kind of acoustic treatment to it.

I worked with a lot of mechanical devices to try to create certain sounds, from Darth Vader’s breathing, or R2-D2, or whatever it is. There was a different technique for each one of them, and they were all physical things, pretty much. So I could appreciate what [Louis and Bebe Barron] did — they had to do the same kind of laborious work of creating sounds and editing and doing it all with tape and a razor blade, and it took a long time. It was a handmade kind of thing. I’m still amazed when I listen to what they did. I still can’t unravel it all.